Boys & Girls Clubs of Oklahoma County

PROJECT PURPOSE

Boys & Girls Clubs throughout Oklahoma will provide evidence-based programs and enhanced services and activities designed to address the academic, social and emotional challenges our youth are experiencing due to COVID. Our mission is to serve the youth who need us most, and there are more Oklahoma kids than ever before needing far more help than before the pandemic. The youth this program will serve face significant challenges and primarily include kids from low socio-economic backgrounds with high ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) scores. Thousands of these Oklahoma youth had no access to WiFi when schools were closed, and virtually all continue to experience food insecurity. Children with these types of life challenges have been disproportionately impacted by COVID, experiencing more significant learning loss and childhood trauma than their peers. The zip code a child is born into should not determine the future for a child, and yet too often that is exactly what happens. The pandemic has exacerbated this situation. This funding request will allow us to serve more Oklahoma youth with critically necessary programs and services, including specifically academic and mental health support, to directly address setbacks from the pandemic and help ensure they all have a great future!

EVIDENCE

Clubs use reading recovery and other software programs that provide individual and group academic progress data as well as daily emotional check-ins. Evidence-based programs and measurements described earlier, combined with data from schools and third-party surveys, indicate that youth attending Boys & Girls Clubs perform 27% - 42% better in reading and math, are 32% less likely to smoke or drink, and are 36% less likely to get into a fight. Teens who graduate from high school contribute an additional $209,100 benefit to the economy, and BGC teens are 35% more likely to graduate from high school than their peers.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

The pandemic has affected all of us, yet none more negatively than low-income communities, underserved communities, ethnic minorities, and children with high ACEs scores. Youth floundered in their homes without adequate food, supervision or internet access. 75% of our parents lost their jobs at the onset of COVID. While students have returned to school, things are far from ?normal.? Even before COVID-19, Oklahoma youth were experiencing significant mental health challenges. The isolation and anxiety surrounding the pandemic only exacerbated these problems with emergency rooms seeing a 24% increase in mental health related visits from children ages 5 to 11 and a 31% increase in teens. Academically, students in these communities are struggling despite heroic efforts during virtual learning. The ramifications are profound. Statewide testing in 2021 showed Oklahoma grade level proficiencies decreased 26% in reading to only 24.8% proficient, and decreased 31% in math skills to only 22.1% proficient. The youth this program will serve score far below those averages, with most scoring 15 ? 18 months behind grade level. Failure to help these students has the unimaginable consequence of losing a generation to academic loss and emotional trauma.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

Boys & Girls Clubs measure the impact of our programs in a variety of ways, including our proprietary MyClubHub software that tracks attendance and program participation, pulse checks, pre- and post-tests that are part of our evidence-based programs, and our annual National Youth Outcomes Initiative (NYOI) that provides feedback on the impact we are making in the areas of academics, mental health, drug and gang prevention and more. Additionally, we have MOUs with school districts across the state that in many cases allow us to discuss student's performance in school, behavioral challenges, and grade progress.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

Able to continue operation without additional funding from the State of Oklahoma